Valley History, Chinese Jade in Fresno's New Museum

Valley History, Chinese Jade in Fresno's New Museum

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Valley history, Chinese jade in Fresno's new museum

The big news in downtown Fresno is on Van Ness Avenue, where the Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art, History and Science opened last April. The fledgling museum already has some impressive exhibits and more are on the way.

Perhaps the best exhibit is the museum building itself. The 1922 Fresno Bee newspaper building, rescued in the nick of time from demolition, is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Resembling a Florentine palazzo, with fine arches and rose-colored brickwork on two sides, the five-story structure is in the Renaissance Revival style.

Currently, displays fill less than one-third of the 100,000-square-foot interior, leaving plenty of room for expansion.

On display through August 26, a huge 700-piece jade exhibit on loan from the National Museum of History in Taipei, Taiwan, chronicles 4,000 years of jademaking in China. Next month, a European portrait exhibit replaces the jade. …